Japanese Application Publication No. 2000-255627 discloses a flexible elongated medical device such as a catheter fixedly held on a card, and packaged (stored) in a bag-shaped packaging member in an unused state.
The card described in Japanese Application Publication No. 2000-255627 is formed of a flexible elongated sheet member. This card is formed with a plurality of flexible fixing belts and a plurality of groove holes for allowing insertion of distal end portions of the fixing belts arranged in parallel along the longitudinal direction of the catheter. The fixing belts each wrap around the catheter in the direction vertical to the longitudinal direction of the catheter (sheet member) and are inserted into the corresponding groove holes, whereby the catheter is held.
The card disclosed in Japanese Application Publication No. 2000-255627 may not be well suited to holding, and allowing storage in a packaging member, a medical device having a bulk connecting member (a structure having a three-dimensional structure) such as a three-way stopcock at a distal end portion of a tube connected to a hub provided at a proximal end portion of the catheter.
First of all, since the catheter is held on the card in a state in which the three-way stopcock is exposed, the packaging member might become damaged by the three-way stopcock, and also the three-way stopcock might be displaced or wobble.
Since a plurality of the packaged catheters are sometimes stored in one box together, the three-way stopcock might be caught by other three-way stopcocks or some other members of adjacent catheters when retrieving the packaged catheter from the box, so that it cannot be retrieved easily or the packaging member might become damaged.